Greetings. Today's guest author is one of my favorite candidates who has served as a mentor to me over the last year who wishes to remain anonymous. Enjoy his story....which arrived late....this morning. Have a great weekend. Enjoy the sacred Army vs Navy game.
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Hello to all of you. I have been a reader of this email list, or “a drinker of the Taderade” as they say, since June. Like many of you, I find the email to be uplifting, interesting and comforting in many ways. At first when Tade told me he wanted to put me on an email that would arrive in my inbox
every day
I was skeptical. But now I like it and have even added my own children to it. While I am happily retired, Tade has managed to send me on a few consulting interviews which was a good reason to leave the house. My wife was happy and I got to put a suit on, get on the train and pretend I'm important again.
My name is Igor (not really….I have another common Russian name) and I live in Westchester County for many years and I am retired. I have two grown children. One lives in San Diego and is a nurse, and the other lives in Murray Hill and works in IT at an international bank, just like his father did for many years. I was the of the first people to have the title CISO in the Wall Street world. Back then, they didn’t know what information security really was or how to classify it properly. A lot has changed.
In 1979, I was nearly 30 year old, living in USSR and working for the Government as computer programmer for the Government. My wife and I had just had our first child. My brother in law worked as a border agent in a remote post on the border with Europe. We had talked about defecting to Europe, and eventually the United States, but the risks were too high. I was just couldn’t imagine living the same life I was living forever. I was born to do more, and to be happier with life. After months of planning, and gathering enough foreign currency was we could without being caught and thrown in jail, my wife and I took our child and made the biggest decision of our lives. We left behind everyone we knew, and everything we had ever known, and left. My wife hugged her brother at the border thinking she would never see him again. She did see him again....in 1993. He lives in Los Angeles.
We made our way to the nearest small city, and eventually made our way onto a train that rook us to Rome. Once we were in Rome, we were homeless for a short period of time. I looked for work and eventually found some as a dishwasher. My wife and I split the job between us, and the restaurant gave us a small room to live in which was off the back of the establishment. After a few months of living like this, I applied to the U.S. embassy for a Visa, which was given out as a lottery. They had only 200 to give for that year for all of Europe, and I received one. I believe this was because I had listed on the application that I had programming experience with the Soviet regime. Three months later, we flew to JFK and walked off the plane. After dealing with immigration, we lived in Queens. I looked for a job and found one at a hospital working as a network administrator. From there, I moved to working for a bank within IT, and the rest is history. In 2008, I was the highest ranking Information Security official at one of the banks that blew up and caused the financial crisis. It wasn’t my fault. Promise.
I think back to the first night in Rome often. My son was crying, we were filthy, hungry, had nowhere to go and spoke little Italian. I feared we had made an awful decision. I remember thinking that all I could control was the exact moment, if I thought too much about how bad our situation was it could be overwhelming. We never begged for money. We received food from the local churches, and I knocked on doors and asked for a job. One thing led to another. I had a son to care for and a wife to take care of. I had to move past my fear.
I hope you enjoyed my story. Have a good weekend. Enjoy your life. It is precious and it could be worse.